There has been known a water-developable photosensitive resin composition for forming a relief printing plate or a resist pattern. These photosensitive resin compositions are generally composed of a water-soluble or water-dispersible polyvinyl alcohol, a polymerizable monomer and a photopolymerization initiator. The compositions, when used, are subjected to light through a negative film having an image to form a latent image by means of photopolymerization and then the unexposed part is washed with water.
For obtaining a photosensitive resin plate by using the photosensitive resin composition, the polyvinyl alcohol is primarily dissolved in water followed by the addition of the polymerizable monomer and initiator to form a mixture. The mixture is then coated on a substrate and water is evaporated to form a photosensitive resin plate. In this process, since a drying step is indispensable for the evaporation of water, it requires a large scale apparatus and consumes a lot of time and energy. Also, since most of the polymerizable monomers to be formulated into the photosensitive resin composition are relatively low molecular weight or have relatively low boiling points, environmental pollution often comes into question because of volatilization of the monomer during the drying step.